Takeovers that could’ve changed the landscape of the Premier League

by Guilherme Neto

Having seen the recent success of Manchester City and Chelsea which has changed the landscape of the Premier League mainly thanks to the vast financial resources of their owners. There have been a few near takeovers which may have changed the way we see the premier league as how it is now. Here we look at the 3 famous near takeovers of Premier League clubs.

One near famous takeover that almost happened was the sale of Newcastle United to a consortium of Nigerian tycoons. During the 2008/2009 premier league season Newcastle United Owner Mike Ashley put the club up for sale after falling out of favour with the fans after the resignation of magpies favourite Kevin Keegan, citing that he did not have full control over the buying and selling of players.

Shortly after putting the club up for sale, a group of Nigerian Businessmen represented by sports agent Chris Nathaniel put in a bid of £350mill to secure the Tyneside club. If proved successful the consortium was planning on reinstating Keegan and investing heavily in transfers. Unfortunately for the fans, their bid was rejected and Mike Ashley till this day remains the owner of Newcastle United

Roman Abramovich, Peter Kenyon and José Mourinho

Roman Abramovich’s takeover of Chelsea in 2003 is probably the most famous takeover in recent history. Leading the Southwest London club to a horde of trophies in the past few years which include 5 Premier league titles & 1 Champions league trophy. However, before he bought Chelsea off Ken Bates in the summer of 2003, the Russian billionaire was seriously considering buying their north London rivals Tottenham. To the detriment of Spurs fans, Roman Abramovich turned down the chance to buy Spurs after a trip through North East London put him off the area. The Chelsea top dog was said to have described Tottenham as ‘worse than the Siberian city of Omsk’.

Manchester United is the most successful team in English football and one of the biggest sports brands in the world. Boasting a record 20 top division titles, the north-west club was almost bought by Rupert Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) for an agreed price worth £623.4m in September 1998. Sky was Britain’s most profitable broadcaster and the prospect of a takeover of one of the biggest institutions in the country by a foreign power was sending shockwaves to the public, resulting in boycotts of Murdoch’s Sun newspaper. However, the move was blocked in 1999 by the Department of Trade and Industry. “The MMC’s findings are based mainly on competition grounds where they concluded that the merger would adversely affect competition between broadcasters,” was the official verdict.